


The North Remembers

by MurderouslyAdorkable



Series: The Women of Ice & Fire [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderouslyAdorkable/pseuds/MurderouslyAdorkable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa has taken back her home and now must put her house in order. Takes place after the Season Five finale. Canon divergence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The North Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know if I can call this Fan Fiction, because as this series goes, I’m not a fan anymore. And if I ever meet Mr. Martin I have so much shit to talk about the last three books. The same goes to the writers of the TV series, and specifically how they handled Sansa’s storyline. So I fixed it for them.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I do not own any of these characters, universes or situations. They belong to George R. R. Martin, etc, etc. I claim no rights to copyrighted material and this story is purely for entertainment purposes.

_ The North Remembers… _

Those words were just wind when she was just a girl. Simply something that she heard from the older folks, from her parents, from her father's bannermen.

_ The North Remembers… _

It was just words. There was no meaning to them. Nothing that touched Sansa on a personal level. Until recently she didn't feel like a Stark. She looked too much like her mother, too much like a Southerner. She was too much a Tully to ever be a Stark. She dreamed of grand feasts, regal lords, and gallant knights. She was a girl with a song on her heart. A girl that hoped to become queen one day. A girl that prayed to the Gods, wishing to one day live in the Red Keep. A girl that was born at the dawn of a long summer. A girl who never remembered the cold of a true winter.

But Winter was coming and she was no longer a child of the long summer. A girl of seven and ten years, Sansa had seen the world for what it was. But Winterfell was hers again. With blood and fire she had won in back. And now her abuser was being brought to her in irons.

Ramsay Snow. She'd never recognize him as nothing but the baseborn bastard he was. Jon was the Bastard of Winterfell. However he had honor. He was a Stark by blood if not by name. Ramsay was no such man.

“Unhand me!” she heard him shout. “I am the Lord of Winterfell. I have your skins for this.”

She felt Theon tense at the sound of his voice. But Sansa was as stoic as her late lord father, the honorable Lord Eddard Stark. She'd never give Ramsay the satisfaction of seeing her fear. She was the Lady of Winterfell by right of blood and of conquest. The true Wardeness of the North. And with Rob's crown and the support of her bannermen, soon to be named the Queen in the North.

The crown sat heavy on her head; a constant reminder of the burden she carried. A queen, who promised another queen that like her forefathers she would only bend the knee to dragons; not lions with delusions of grandeur. Cersei promised her war. But Cersei had to escape the Judgment of the Seven before that could be realized. It gave Sansa the time she needed to give her house in order.

“Ramsay Snow,” Sansa sneered when she was dragged into her tent. “How good of you to grace me with your presence. I hope you're finding your accommodations as pleasant I found our marriage bed.”

“You bitch!” he spat, groaning in pain when Lord Umber brought him to his knees with a power blow from the pommel of his greatsword.

“That's your Grace, you sick bastard,” the large man said.

“Thank you, Lord Umber,” Sansa told him. “But I am your Lady and this is my battle to fight.”

“Of course, your Grace,” he said with a slight nod.

She almost smiled when she corrected him. “I am not a queen yet.”

“You wear the crown, your Grace,” he replied. “And you carry your father's name. You are the Queen in the North.”

“The North has no queen,” Ramsay said. “I am your lord. And you lot are traitors. I'll wear your skin like cloaks!”

This time she did smile. But it wasn't warm. It was as cold and as menacing at the threat of winter. “No, Ramsay. A Stark must always be in Winterfell. And you are no Stark. You're not even a Bolton.”

“I was legitimized!” he insisted.

“By a bastard born of incest,” Sansa replied. “It means nothing. The South could never rule the North. A southern king could never legitimize a Snow.”

“You bitch!” he shouted. “I should have killed you.”

“That was your mistake, my dear husband,” she said, coolly. “One that I will not make... Bring the bastard to the middle of camp, Lord Umber. There in front of the men, I will give my judgment.”

The air was cold. But it didn't bother her. Despite looking like her mother's people, she was a Northern. Winter flowed through her veins. Snow blanketed the ground, crunching under foot with each careful step. Theon walked carefully at her side with his head down until she reminded him of his place. 

“You are Theon Greyjoy, heir to the Iron Islands. Lord Reaper of Pyke. Prince of Salt and Rock. You will fear no man.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

Ramsay wouldn't stop with his idle threats. He couldn't see that he had lost. She had broken his armies. His father was dead. As was the Fray girl he had taken for a wife. Sansa ordered her body be taken to get father. A wordless promise came with her corpse. Walder Fray would be next. The Lord of the Twins should count himself lucky that Sansa hadn't mutilated her body as Rob’s had been. 

“Accept your defeat, my husband,” she said. “The North will hear no more of your useless prattling.”

“The Lannisters will have your head for this,” he yelled as her bannermen forced him to his knees. 

“Mayhaps. But not before I take yours,” was her softly spoken reply. She held out her hand to Theon and he offered her a sword as he had once done for her father. It still felt foreign in her hands. But thanks to Theon’s tutelage it was getting easier to wield. 

“Ramsay Snow, for your crimes,” she began. “I, Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell.”

“The Queen in the North!” her bannermen shouted.

“The Queen in the North...” she continued, “...do sentence you to die. If you have any last words, I shall hear them.”

“Fuck you.”

As last words went they were as good as any. She raised her sword and brought it down swiftly, separating his head from his body in one - well two blows. Sansa could have let Theon do it. Or Lord Umber. Or even her brother, Jon, who offered, if not insisted to do it himself. But that was a Southern’s way of doing things. In the North, he, or in this case, she who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

People cheered. But Sansa took no pleasure in his death. Ramsay was a monster and now he was dead. That was the end of it. No more. No less. She didn’t think anything of it. Even after Jon told her to burn the body. She felt nothing. So long as she felt this void, she couldn’t be hurt by the trauma she had endured when she was passed off to Ramsay. She couldn’t be plagued by the thoughts swirling in her head, the doubt, the constantly questioning herself. 

_ If only I was stronger. If only I had trusted Tyrion instead of Littlefinger. If only I had ran when the Hound offered to take me from King’s Landing. If only… If only…. If only I had died. _

The void didn’t stop the nightmares, however. Reliving all of her tribulations since the day she had watched Lady die for something Joffery had done. She couldn’t help but blame herself for everything. And her dreams were simple manifestations of her guilt. 

When the nightmares were at their worst, she turned to drink to quiet her inner demons. Until Sansa realized it was something Cersei had taught her. So she never touched the stuff again. Even when her bannermen had asked her to share a drink with them. Jon didn’t either. Something about his resurrection had changed him. As much as her time in the South had changed her. They were both reborn. Sansa, the Queen in the North. And her brother, Jon, the Wolf on the Wall.

Cleaning the blood from her sword is how Jon found her. She sensed Ghost first before heard Jon’s steps. Her tent was outside of Castle Black. Tomorrow she would head back to her home. Winterfell. For the last week before they destroyed the Boltons, Sansa asked Jon to come home with her, to rule like Robb had wanted. But he said his duty was to the Watch and to stopping the coming Darkness. She eventually relented, promising whatever he needed, if it was in her power to give she would. Then she embraced him and called him brother.

“Sansa,” he said, pushing the flaps of her tent away as he entered. 

“Jon,” she greeted with a slight nod, her eyes shifting between him, Ghost, and the bloodied edge of her sword.

He dipped his head apologetically. “I’m sorry… it’s ‘your Grace’ now.”

She almost smiled at that. “Not to you.” Her brother was silent for a moment and she felt like something was wrong. So Sansa asked. “What is it, Jon?”

“It’s Theon, Sansa…”

“I know what he’s done,” she told him. “How he betrayed us…”

Jon nodded. “I know. It’s a crime he must answer for. Your bannermen…”

“Will learn to accept him again,” she finished his sentence in her own way, though she knew he wasn’t going to say that. There were whispers, her bannermen were a talkative lot. They hated Theon but they never moved against him because of what Theon had meant to her. She watched Jon’s expression grow sullen and this time she did smile. “You look like father when you do that.”

“But I’m not wise like him,” he said.

She shook her head. “No. He had the good sense to stay dead.”

They shared a chuckle and then Jon cleared his throat. “Talk to him, Sansa. Make him bend the knee and surrender the Iron Islands as a show of faith of his loyalty.”

She shook her head. “His people would never accept that. If I want the Iron Islands, I will have to take it their way, with Salt and Iron.”

Jon sighed. “You don’t have to do this, Sansa.”

“I do,” Sansa said. “I will.”

“He’s on top of the Wall,” he told he before he headed out.

She took her sword with her, dismissing her escort with a, “If I cannot defend myself then I am not fit to wear the Crown of Winter. And I should not count myself a queen.”

From the top of the Wall Sansa felt like she could see all of the North. From the Neck to the Last Hearth. She ruled it all. And that was a burden heavier than her crown. She often wished that her brothers would take this burden from her. Or that Arya would come home and they could lay siege to King’s Landing side-by-side. But Rickon and Bran were gone. Mostly likely dead. And so was Arya. On the clear nights like tonight, Sansa would swear she hear Nymeria, Arya’s direwolf roaming the land with her pack, guarding the North. That was oddly comforting. However, it was just another story Sansa spun to make her feel less alone. Which is probably part of the reason she refused to kill Theon. After Jon, he was last bit of family she had left.

Theon Greyjoy was looking beyond the Wall toward the Land of Always Winter. Though he couldn’t see it. No one could. No one had ever been there. Besides the snowstorm was too vast, the air around them too thick ice and fog. But Theon looked out from on top of the Wall, to a land he would never see.

“Your Grace,” he said with a bow when he turned to find Sansa approaching him.

“Lord Theon,” she replied. “Tomorrow we return to Winterfell. After that I can send you wherever you would like. Across the Narrow Sea. To the Iron Islands. To you home.”

“Winterfell is my home, your Grace,” he told her. 

“Winterfell will always be your home,” she promised him.

He smiled softly. “I do not deserve your kindness.”

“That may be true,” she agreed. “But I have lived among lion, snakes, flayed men, and monsters. I have seen dead men rise from their graves, and the direwolves return to the North. Winter is Coming, Theon. And I can use as many allies in the coming storm.”

“What of the Queen Across the Narrow Sea?” he asked. “What of Daenerys? The Imp-” When she narrowed her eyes at him, Theon corrected himself. “Lord Tyrion said she would support your claim if you helped her win her throne. She is to come here as soon as she is able, is she not?”

“And we will see what can for person she is then,” Sansa replied. “I don’t know Daenerys. I’ve never met a Targaryen. All I know is what I’ve heard about her father, ‘The Mad King.’ The one that burned my grandfather alive while my uncle watched, helpless. I will not bend the knee to his daughter if she proves herself to be just as mad as him. Despite what Tyrion might say, and despite that I trust Tyrion’s word, I must see this Dragon Queen myself.”

“You look so much like your mother, your Grace,” Theon whispered. “But when you speak all I hear is Lord Eddard.”

She sighed. “I hope I don’t meet the same fate he did or Robb… Or my mother.”

“You won’t,” Theon told her. “Especially, when you kill all of the traitors in your service.”

Sansa frowned. “I already have.”

He shook his head. “No, not everyone.”

“Theon, no. I won’t. I need you,” she confessed.

“Your Grace, please,” he implored her. “You are a Queen. You rule your house. You rule the North. And you will crush the Lannisters. But this needs to happen. I need to die.”

“Theon…” she whispered, her breath coming out in a hot cloud. “I can’t.”

He took her hand into his. “You can, Sansa. You have to. I lived too long as Reek. Let me die as Theon Greyjoy.”

The heir of the House of Greyjoy knelt before her. He told her that he had written a letter to his sister, as well as one to Jon, and one to her. He begged that she pass judgement on him and take his life. Then she could start her rule on the right foot, free of his treachery. 

Sansa’s sung when she removed it from its sheath, tears freezing to her cheeks. She said a prayer, to the New Gods and the Old. She prayed to the Father for strength. And to the Mother for mercy. She prayed to the Stranger to keep the soul that she was about to send to the Otherside. 

“Theon Greyjoy, heir to the Iron Islands, Prince of Salt and Rock, for your crimes,” she began, her voice cracking as she said the words. “I, Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell, Queen in the North, do sentence you to die… If you have last words, I shall hear them.”

“I love you, Sansa Stark… I’m sorry… Tell my sister I died well… Tell her I died like an ironborn,” he said.

Sansa raised the sword in her hand and brought it down. To her surprise she didn’t need a second blow. Theon’s head rolled from his shoulders and she dragged his body with her as she made her way down the Wall. Jon was waiting for her, surprised that Theon wasn’t alive.

“Sansa…” he called. “I didn’t think…”

“I know, but this wasn’t my choice…” she told him as her bannermen came to meet her. She ordered them to burn the body and collect the ashes. Sansa promised herself that she would bring Theon home. He’d be put to rest in the same place her forefathers had been buried. 

“I’m tired, Jon…” she confessed quietly as Theon’s body was set ablazed. “But this war is far from over.”

He nodded. “Be ready. The Long Night approaches, your Grace.”

“Yes, Lord Commander, the North Remembers and Winter is Coming.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's my plan to write several one-shots about the women of the Ice and Fire series. They will all be connected. And there might be some overlap.
> 
> I'm CuteLikeMurder on Tumblr and @MurderouslyCute on Twitter. Gimme a follow. I write femslash (mostly swanqueen) but I love most fandoms.


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